Natural Occurrence
Methamphetamine has been reported to occur naturally in Acacia berlandieri, and possibly Acacia rigidula, trees that grow in West Texas. Methamphetamine and amphetamine were long thought to be strictly human-synthesized, but Acacia trees contain these and numerous other psychoactive compounds (e. g., mescaline, nicotine, dimethyltryptamine), and the related compound β-phenethylamine is known to occur from numerous Acacia species. The findings, however, have never been confirmed or repeated, leading some researchers to believe the results were the result of cross-contamination.
Read more about this topic: Methamphetamine
Famous quotes containing the words natural and/or occurrence:
“Any woman who chooses to behave like a full human being should be warned that the armies of the status quo will treat her as something of a dirty joke. That’s their natural and first weapon. She will need her sisterhood.”
—Gloria Steinem (b. 1934)
“One is absolutely sickened, not by the crimes that the wicked have committed, but by the punishments that the good have inflicted; and a community is infinitely more brutalised by the habitual employment of punishment than it is by the occasional occurrence of crime.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)